Aftertaste (Sin #2)

XLIV.

My heart is beating fast and hard in my chest, staring at Ryder and Lena calmly sitting on the couch and just giving me a bored look. Seeing Ryder again makes me want to run as fast and far as I can just to get away from him.

"What are you doing here?" I ask him with a tight, shaky voice.

Ryder lazily sweeps his eyes up and down my body and the gesture makes me almost throw up all over the living room floor. I want to hide somewhere where he won't be able to ever look at me again. His eyes on me make me uncomfortable and scared. "What do you mean? I'm just visiting my friend," he says, casually dropping his arm around Lena's shoulders.

I look at Lena with wide eyes, but she just turns her head towards him and smiles. What? My heart speeds up, my stomach dropping. Out of all the people in the world, she found Ryder and decided to date him? I don't even want to know what's going on between those two and since when, but it starts to kind of make more sense to me now how Ryder could find me so easily after all this time.

Lena turns her head back to look at me again. "Sit down, Gabby. We'll have a talk."

I shake my head. "I'd rather not. Alexander is going to be here any second," I say, clinging to the hope he's going to show up soon. What is taking him so long?

Lena gives me a small, patient smile. It looks like she's almost sorry for me because she's about to tell me something I won't like. "Oh, don't count on him. He's going to give us all the privacy we need."

My eyes widen and I feel panic starting to grip my insides. "What does that mean?" I ask with a small voice. What did they do?

Lena shrugs, intertwining her hands together. "Just that he's not coming up any time soon. Don't worry, he's completely safe. You, however ... That depends on your cooperation."

I'm full-on panicking right now. "Where is everyone?" I ask, hoping that Amelia and Clara aren't here. Oh, God.

"Out," Lena says courtly, not offering any more explanation.

I feel my palms starting to sweat in fear of what's going on right now. I have no idea what's happening and what this is about. "What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?"

Lena just cocks her head, enjoying the sight of my scared state. "If you sat down, we would get right to it."

I shake my head. I'm not getting near any of them. I can't even look at Ryder without wanting to curl into a ball. I tried to leave all those fears behind and I tried escaping those people, only to run into new ones who are evil to me. I don't know if I have such luck in life or I just attract people like that. I never mean any harm to other people, I'm just trying to do my own thing and live my life, but it seems like it's just not possible because something or someone always comes in the way of that.

"I'll stay here," I press further, not backing down. I'll stay here because I feel safer when there's at least some distance between us.

I nervously look towards the door, but there's no sight or sound of Alexander. That worries me because what if they do something? I know Lena is basically obsessed with him, but I don't know what she's capable of doing.